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ON THE SCENE
DIRECT FROM IRAQ
DR. GRAHAM LEONARD
The May 13th event "What I Saw and Learned in Iraq" sponsored by
The Sevier County Democratic Club, was a big success.
Dear Friends,
On Wednesday 13 April I returned to Amman. The Tennessee Peacemakers delivered me to the Liaison Team with the Koreans at Irbil, Kurdistan, on Friday. After midnight Saturday, they put me on a supply convoy to Mosul. The army was not willing to try to get me to the Syrian border due to fighting on the Iraqi side of it. About three on Monday morning the US Military left me at Harbor Gate, their name for the NW point in Iraq where the Syrian and Turkish borders meet Iraq. There is a border crossing into Turkey (but not Syria). By eight (seven Turkish time) I was on a brand new Mercedes bus ($4) to Nuseibeh, a hundred miles west and the first border crossing into Syria. Stuck there 24 hours because of no visa for Syria. They have a rule, NO VISAS AT BORDERS except from Lebanon. How was I to get a Syrian visa in Iraq with open war in Baghdad? They replied "in Turkey", which meant Ankara (400 miles) or Istanbul (900 miles). I was able to talk them into faxing Damascus for special permission to cross Syria, partly because of being a journalist for Beirut DAILY STAR but also because I had been a professor at AUB.
After waiting in the sun until the border closed at three PM in the vain hope that a reply would come, I retreated to a hotel in Turkey and slept in a bed for the first time following two nights on the road in a humvee. After fourteen hours of sleep I found an internet café open (one of three in the neighborhood!) to signal my delay to Amman. Back at the border, more waiting. About 1130 acceptance came through and I reached the one a day noon bus to Damascus just in the nick of time to hold the bus while I bought a ticket ($6 for an 8 1/2 hour ride!). My trip from Tuz followed the Fertile Crescent except for a brief diversion across part of the Syrian desert where nomads use modern tents. Pick-ups replace camels and horses which were nowhere in sight.. We stopped in Deir az Zur and at Palmyra had a half hour rest stop. I took a taxi to the fabulous classical ruins of the city of Queen Zenobia, more extensive and complete than anything in Rome. The late afternoon lighting was perfect but the battery for my video digital camera was down.
In Damascus after leaving my things in a hotel I found the home of a friend I had lost touch with since the mid eighties. His youngest son emailed Amman that I got the visa. Early Wednesday I walked to the JETT bus office to buy a ticket to Amman for three PM and then walked through the Souk al Hamadiya back to my friends' small factory. I called the German Embassy to talk with Dr. Ann Bartels, daughter of the late Ambassador to Jordan, Palestine and Morocco. I had attended her Confirmation in Jerusalem. She met me at Istiphan's shop at noon where we caught up on news of families. Meanwhile I did some shopping and ate the marvelous ice cream with crushed pistachios that is an essential part of visiting Damascus. Lunched with the Orfalys whose sons took me to the bus which we almost missed due to traffic jams. Damascus has about twenty times the population of the city I first visited fifty-five years ago and has serious water shortages and other population related problems!
The border controls of both Syria and Jordan have computerized records, so crossing is relatively shorter. Bus travel in the Middle East is comfortable. We were served water and hard candies after each stop and an attendant looked after the passengers. The Jett bus company is managed and partly owned by the Muftis. Mrs. Inam Mufti worked with me in UNRWA and was head of the Queen Nur Foundation. Back in Amman with the Biltaji family, tonight, Thursday, 14 April, 2004, I will attend the Mass for Pope John Paul at the site of Jesus' baptism on the Jordan River. I plan to fly back to the USA this week end, In Shah Allah.
Love,
Graham
Iraqis must embrace their differences to co-exist
Origin of identity remains the most complex and least understood issue
By Graham Leonard
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Some analysts write about Iraq as if each geographic area contained a population of one exclusive ethnic group: Kurd, Arab or Turkoman; or of only one religious community: Sunni or Shiite Muslim, Christian or Yazidi.
In fact, most parts of Iraq, especially in cities and large towns, contain extended families from many different language and/or religious communities. The idea of exclusive territorial nationalism, based on family identity, in its modern form - state geographic nationalism - came to the Middle East only after World War I. Can peaceful co-existence ever last based on agreement between various family, language or religious identities? Or must some higher or lower level commonality of interest be stressed in order to maintain some semblance of peaceful co-existence?
The problem of co-existence among Iraqis exists very clearly in the Tuz area south of Kirkuk. Let us look at the need for co-existence in Tuz as a micro example of three aspects of Iraq's identity dilemma.
I - Iraqis' identities lie far more in a group (family, clan, tribe, religious community, language/culture group) than in the individual.
II - Iraqis still define the interests of their families (their primary identity) in terms of their mother-tongue language group more than as Iraqis.
III - Due partially to the Ottoman millet (religious community) system, most Iraqis still identify their families' interests with others in their millet more than as Iraqis.
While Iraqis almost all put their group (primarily extended family) identity above all other interests, the degree of stress on language (ethnic) identity versus religious (millet) identity varies from area to area, family to family, from economic class to class and even from time to time.
This identity question remains extremely complex. It may be the least understood factor in the "Iraqi Problem" - even or especially by Iraqis. Both coalition and Iraqis must understand these problems before some peaceful solution can be found for what we call Iraq that will prevent eventual open internecine conflict.
I. Few outside analysts or Iraqis seem to understand how different coalition forces and Iraqis each behave or think and regard each other at the very basic level of identity. For the past two or three centuries people of Western cultures have increasingly stressed individual identity.
All of our 20th-century psychologies (and Western concepts of democracy) are based on the adjustments of the individual, on his or her own. The Protestant ethic and the West's secular ethos are individual-based. But in Iraq, and most of the world, identity lies mostly outside the individual, in the family and other groups.
When Westerners interact with Iraqis (or most people of the world outside the West and also many Westerners) they do not realize how differently they are motivated and thinking (to what degree each is, in fact, self-defined or group defined). Part of this unawareness comes from Westerners interacting mostly with Iraqis who speak our language, shared much of our Westernizing schooling and have common material interests. English-speaking Iraqis are equally unaware of our differences in identity location. This false communication is very dangerous because it is so superficially satisfying.
II. In the area of Tuz, the main Iraqi language communities are about equally distributed among the mother-tongue speakers of Kurdish, Turkomen and Arabic. But that picture has been blurred because for nearly a century all have been forced to get their Western-curricula schooling through Arabic. [For all three language groups, Muslim religious education has always been in Arabic.]
In the 20th-century Western curricula schooling in Iraq has increased from less than 5 percent of males to over 90 percent of all children under Saddam Hussein. Schools, government and most commerce have been through Arabic. Under the Saddam regime, being Arab was so important that families and villages of Shiite Turkomen feigned being Arab Sunni. Residential separation by languages may be far more definable than by religious community.
Basing peaceful co-existence on language identification risks making them become permanent divisions. For Tuz, such identities risk outside interference from Kurdistan in one direction and Iraqi national Arabic identity in another. Partition lies in that course of action if for no other reason than demands for schools in mother tongues.
III. In the area called Iraq since World War I, religious communities have lived intermixed to a degree not easily understood in the West. Under the Ottomans (1520 to 1920 A.D.), each religious community ruled itself on many crucial issues. Each community had its own laws and courts for: marriage, divorce, inheritance and other "personal status" issues. They even judged crimes up to murder if within the same community.
After World War I, when "geographically defined" state nationalism came to the former Turkish Empire, it found people of various religious communities thoroughly mixed residentially. Often they lived together in the same neighborhood, even the same apartment buildings.
Dividing religious communities geographically would be very difficult in Iraq, especially in cities and towns. It would only perpetuate differences - not lead to peaceful co-existence. The fact that some areas are entirely of one religious community or another complicates the matter by giving false hopes that all could live in isolation.
Iraqis need to find some macroidentity or loyalty, or place primary identity in the individual - micro - or conflict will continue by emphasizing language/cultural and/or religious-community identities. Identity conflicts will continue, even intensify.
In some areas of Iraq, especially those with a large majority of one religious community, Iraqis may tend to put millet ahead of language as an identifying factor. But in Tuz and many mixed mother-tongue areas language is the dominant identity over millet. In all cases, the presence of language and of millet differences invites fanatics to use those factors to incite inter-communal conflict. No matter how peaceful Tuz appears on the surface, that potential for mischief always lies under the surface.
Even though America has gone the micro route, we have not eliminated internal conflict. We keep crying for "tolerance," but that is not deep enough to hold a national state together. No one likes to be tolerated. It means that "you can continue to be whatever you want or are born to be until you get smart enough to be like me." If Iraq wants real social peace, all the people would have to learn to accept and respect, even welcome, language and religious differences as vital for a dynamic community. Then Iraqis would no longer care about differences, but that is a long way off for Iraq.
A macrosolution may be the kind of secular nationalism, almost worship of the state that Saddam attempted. But some loyalty greater than family, clan, tribe, or millet would need to be cultivated. For now, that could be patriotism to Iraq which increased greatly in recent decades. Even dislike of coalition (or any) occupation may serve to unify Iraqis in support of their country. In time it may need to become loyalty to humanity. In any case, in the future it would have to be a wider identity than self, family, clan or tribe, or culture or millet for internal peace to survive in Iraq. At present and in future all these identity factors can be used to divide and cause conflict between Iraqis.
Whatever the eventual solution for all the areas now called Iraq, its problems exist in microcosm for the Tuz area. Here all three problems - identity, language and millet - are clearly exemplified in miniature. And the Tuz area will come increasingly under pressure not only because it exemplifies larger problems but also as it lies on the borders between the "Sunni triangle" and Kurdistan, adjacent to and the soft underbelly of the richest petroleum area in Iraq (if not the world) - the Kirkuk oil fields.
Graham Leonard has served UNESCO as an adviser on teacher education for UNRWA in the West Bank; worked in Jerusalem as management officer of the Program for Assistance to the Palestinian People through the UNDP; taught at a variety of institutions in the U.S., U.K., China and the Middle East; and acted as a consultant on education, the Middle East and other topics.
2/278TH MEMORIAL CEREMONY FOR SPECIALIST PAUL THOMASON
FOB Bernstein, Tuz, Iraq: Special Correspondent Dr. Graham Leonard
Tuesday 22-3-05
In the time honored manner of the old cavalry, the officers and men of the 2/278th Armored Cavalry marched onto the FOB Bernstein parade ground to pay tribute to Specialist Paul William Thomason III of Jefferson City, Tennessee. The Memorial Ceremony honors the dead fallen in the line of duty while dedicating each soldier to renewal of his bonds of shared caring for each other. The concrete apron of a former air base serves the 2/278th both as helicopter pad and parade ground. Seven helicopters and the men lined up facing the symbol of Thomason: a large picture (attached), his boots, and his helmet standing on the butt of his gun, stuck down in concrete blocks covered by camouflage. In the end every soldier filed past the picture and symbol to give a final slow salute to Specialist Thomason while a brass quartet, flown in from Tikrit, played hymns.
Tuesday 22 March is the windiest day the 2/278th have experienced without rain. The dry winds blow dust devils and anything not tied down. All sounds tend to get carried away. The bright sun showed the low ridge of Kurdistan to the east and flat horizons in every other direction. The burn off fires of the Kirkuk oil fields can be seen even by daylight to the north and northeast. Feelings of the officers and men were somber because this is only the second death in four months in Iraq. The 2/278th had almost begun to believe that their carefulness and attention to details of security would be enough to keep them safe. But Specialist Thomason was riding in one of the 278th’s most heavily armored vehicles. Even with the greatest attention to security, danger can strike! All feel this loss and the threat of future loss!
With the men and officers standing at attention, the Memorial Ceremony began with a recorded bagpipe playing Amazing Grace. The colors, American and Regimental flags, were posted. All presented arms as the National Anthem was played by a brass quartet flown in from Tikrit. After the post Chaplain, Captain Clark of Johnson City, gave a short prayer, he and three others sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic, very appropriate for honoring a northeast Tennesseean.
Te S-1 Officer, Captain Justice, from Johnson City, read a short but very moving Eulogy:
“For my men and myself, I know I can say this--we all deeply cared for SPC Thomason. We loved him as a brother. We are all very sad that he has left us, and his absence left an aching hole in our hearts.”
“I can for myself that my homecoming will not be as sweet or golden as I once thought it would be. Losing a soldier is a terrible thing. Losing a brother is far more worse.”
Following this, Captain Justice reported several stores he had heard from men praising Thomason.
Regimental Commander Colonel Dennis Adams, of Gray, gave a general appreciation of Specialist Thomason and of all soldiers doing their duty no matter what the cost.
Commander of the 2/278th, Lt. Col. Franklin McCauley spoke from the heart:
“Today, Tuesday, March 22, 2005, we gather to honor the memory of Specialist Paul Thomason.
This is indeed a sad occasion for his friends and fellow soldiers, but it is even sadder for his family back home in Tennessee. Our thoughts and prayers are for his family who must go on without him.
I had the honor to work with Specialist Thomason due to his assignment in Headquarters and Headquarters Troop. He had a quiet and unassuming manner, a quick smile, always did his best in anything you asked of him and got along with everyone.
It was for these reasons that he was assigned to assist in transporting our most precious cargo from FOB Speicher to FOB Bernstein. He knew how important it was to take care of our soldiers during their travels to other FOBs and for leave and he did that job well, if only for a short time.
He joined troop G to help fight the war on terrorism. He volunteered for what he felt was his duty as an American citizen. He has made the ultimate sacrifice for his country and for that, he will be forever a hero.
For his sacrifice not to be in vain, we must continue to fight the good fight for what is right and honorable.
We must continue to work as a team to help make our portion of Iraq secure from terrorists and enable the good Iraqi citizens to govern themselves.
We will do this. We MUST do this. For this is our mission.
Paul, we love you as our fellow Peacemaker.
We will miss you and we will always remember you.
We will never forget!”
Thomason’s troop commander, Captain William Jessie, from Claiborne County, of the HHT (Headquarters and Headquarters Troop) spoke most intimately about the fine qualities of Specialist Thomason and details of his buying a house. He had finished moving into it only a few hours before he left east Tennessee on Fathers Day last June. Captain Jessie ended his remarks calling for a few minutes of silent tribute to Paul Thomason.
Chaplain Clark also gave a eulogy on the theme: “Freedom isn’t free!”
The gist of all these tributes to Specialist Thomason concentrated on his love for all children, especially his own. They told of how he enjoyed handing out candy to children on his patrols [see picture]. All spoke of his quietness and dedication to duty and his willingness, even eagerness to accept responsibility.
The Regimental Chaplain, Major Crew from Camp Caldwell, gave a closing prayer.
The gist of all the tributes to Specialist Thomason concentrated on his love for all children, especially his own. The spoke of his quietness and dedication to duty and his willingness, even eagerness, to accept responsibility. All mentioned his great ability as a carpenter and his generosity in making things for others without expecting anything in return. Poignantly Captain Jessie remembered that Thomason had moved into a new house for his family only hours before going off to Camp Shelby last June.
After the final prayer, the Squadron came to attention and presented arms during the playing of taps by a lone trumpet.
Then the entire Squadron, beginning with the officers and staff, filed in front of the picture and symbol of Specialist Paul William Thomason III, each giving a slow salute. The men then came by in fives and gave their slow, final salute.
During the salutes, the Brass Quartet softly and slowly played favorite hymns such as: Abide with Me; Over And Above Us Watch; the Old Rugged Cross; Fairest Lord Jesus; Beulah Land; America The Beautiful, and again Amazing Grace.
After all the 2/278th had passed by, the moved forward. When dismissed, they all shouted the 278th mottos: “I VOLUNTEER, SIR!”
Three men of the secretive and highly trained Special Forces, who work closely with the 2/278th came forward and made their individual salutes.
Perhaps most moving of all, the Commander and staff of the New Iraqi Army, whom the 2/278th are training on part of FOB Bernstein base, some of the Arabic, Kurdish and Turkomen Translators and the local entrepreneur (a Kurd) who had attended the Memorial Ceremony, came forward on their own and unrehearsed and stood before the picture and symbol of Specialist Thomason and said the ”fatiha”--the Muslim prayer for the dead!
As the troops were dismissed, two by two (and three) the seven helicopters lifted off and flew back to their various bases with those from other bases who had come to honor Specialist Thomason.
After the Memorial Ceremony and before dinner, the Commander of the 2/278th, Lt. Col McCauley telephoned to the widow of Specialist Thomason to express the condolences of all the 2/278th and to describe the Memorial Ceremony in his honor.
PALM SUNDAY ROAD BOMB KILLS “TENNESSEE PEACEMAKER”
Tuz, Iraq: 22-3-05: Special Correspondent Dr. Graham Leonard
On Palm Sunday morning while officers and men of the 2/278th Armored Cavalry worshipped in Peacemaker Chapel at their Tuz Forward Operating Base (FOB) Bernstein, a massive road bomb destroyed a huge supply truck near Kirkuk, killing one soldier of the Tennessee Peacemakers and seriously injuring four others. Specialist Paul William Thomason III of Jefferson City, commander of the supply truck died almost instantly. Sitting next to Thomason, the driver was very seriously injured. Four men returning form Rest and Recreation leave were thrown from the back of the truck and seriously injured. Small arms fire was returned, killing one and wounding another of the attackers and possible detonaters of the bomb. Helicopters, ambulances and QRF (Quick Reaction Force) from nearby FOB Warrior in Kirkuk arrived on the scene in a few minutes. The driver was air-evaced to Germany for surgery and the others were treated at Warrior or at Speicher air base in Tikri! t, origin of the supply convoy. A Memorial Ceremony for Specialist Thomason was held at FOB Bernstein at 1400 on Tuesday (0600 in east Tennessee).
Specialist Thomason, of the 2/278th’s HHT (Headquarters and Headquarters Troop) served the 2/289th as Liaison between FOB Bernstein, near Tuz, Iraq, and the division headquarters an hour and a half west at Tikrit. Due to heavy rains, the direct road across a reservoir between Tikrit and Tuz was flooded and impassable. Over three feet of water covers the causeway and bridge across the reservoir. Winter rains have been unusually heavy and the water is badly needed for irrigation in the coming dry season. On Friday, a convoy of humvees barely made it across westward and it was declared impassable. That convoy and the supply convoy on Sunday therefore used a longer route to the north via Kirkuk.
Coalition forces were aware that trouble was brewing in Kirkuk over the question of returning the thousands of Kurds displaced with Sunni Arabs by the Saddam Hussein regime. Control of oil rich Kirkuk area is at stake and holding up the forming of an Iraqi interim government following the 30 January elections. Three Iraqi police officers were killed on Friday at the funeral of an officer killed the day before! Extra precautions were taken for all convoys using that route to Warrior or to Tuz. The Palm Sunday convoy had trucks of supplies for both bases. Not far before Kirkuk and just after a New Iraqi Army check point a few hundred yards before the road bomb, the convoy had stopped to tighten loose cargo. They formed into a defensive square. Perhaps that gave the detonators of a bomb planted unseen under the pavement to single out the one truck carrying personnel.
As the cab of that truck commanded by Specialist Thomason came over the bomb, it was detonated, leaving a hole 9’ by 12’ and 3’ deep. The very large and heavily armored truck carrying Thomason was thrown off the highway onto its side. It was later estimated by demolition experts that at least two hundred pounds of explosives were used in the bomb. The trigger was likely a small two way radio converted to a detonator device. Large 155 artillery shells are often used for such roadside bombs. Thousand of such shells have been discovered concealed all over Iraq and many thousands more are not accounted for. The 2/278th have detected, detonated and/or returned to FOB Bernstein and destroyed dozens of such shells and other Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). It is almost impossible to find them all.
This complex attack on the combined supply convoy included the massive bomb and a smaller one detonated shortly afterward fifty feet away but with out injuries to men or vehicles. Small arms fire tried to kill the soldiers in the truck. But fire was returned with one of the attackers killed and another wounded and detained. This kind of near suicidal attack is new to the Area.
The driver, Specialist Anthony Lambert of Greeneville, Tennessee, was the most severely wounded of the survivors. He sustained two broken ankles, broken ribs and had one lung punctured by a rib. Within a few hours he was in Germany for surgery and bone repair. Specialist Dennis holt of Ashland City, Tennessee, was thrown off the back of the truck sustained a broken foot.
Specialist David Orlandini of Maryville, Tennessee and Specialist Shawn Hall of
Telford, Tennessee, both suffered injuries from the initial explosion. “Specialist Hall while still in the damaged vehicle returned fire with his weapon even though he was bleeding badly from a head wound” that eventually took twelve stitches to close. “After the exchange of fire ceased he continued to move around the site rendering assistance wherever needed.” Specialist Orlandini suffered a badly broken foot with bones protruding through the skin. “Refusing medical attention, Orlandi, a medic, made his way to the side of Specialist Thomason.” “Even though he was in obvious pain he continued and used his medical skills to assist those who had suffered more serious injuries. Specialist Orlandi assisted with CPR on Thomason for approximately thirty minutes, until Medevac arrived and pronounced him dead.
Quotes above and following are from the after action report of Captain Douglas Dunlap, 50th Main Support Battalion, commander of the convoy. “Both soldiers were injured in the initial blast, were targeted by small arms fire and were in the vicinity of the secondary blast. With their injuries both soldiers could have chosen to take cover and wait for medical assistance, however, they both made the decision to stay in the fight and complete the mission.”
Other than official, all communications from and to all 278th bases were shut down until it was confirmed that Specialist Thomason’s relatives had been officially informed. That explains the delay in this report. It is hard to describe the pall over FOB Bernstein. A friend, closer than a brother, had been killed. In addition to wondering if there could have been any way to have prevented that tragedy, the officers and men of the 2/278th felt renewed resolve to prevent IED fatalities and even injuries in the future and to renew our mission as Tennessee Peacemakers. It could have been any of us. One can not feel relief when feeling so sad for a friend and comrade.
OUR 2/278th --FROM CASUAL CIVILIANS TO GREAT PEACEMAKERS!
Tuz, Iraq 12-3-05
The 2/278th National Guard from northeastern Tennessee control a key area in
the eastern part of Iraq, just south of oil rich Kirkuk. As an "embedded"
journalist, I am living with them for a month, going where they go and doing
or observing how they do their daily work as Tennessee Peaceacemakers. I
have seen the men of the 2/278th when they were still civilians and now ten
months later as they do a wonderful job in an area of equally numbered
ethnic groups--Kurds, Arabs and Turkomen. In a series of articles I will try
to do justice to these men (and a few women) by describing what they do and
how they live. It is a story of adventure as men achieve what more than they
ever imagined and become finer than they even dared believe they could be!
In the spring of 2004, I learned that the second squadron of the 278th
Tennessee National Guard was being activated to serve in Iraq. The second
squadron are from Northeast Tennessee where my roots lie. They would be
going to my other world---the Arab Middle East. It seemed an opportunity to
share with people o f my home area my experience of thirty-five years as an
educator in the Middle East and another ten studying about Islam, Arabic and
the Arabs. "I volunteered!" Turns out that is the motto of the 278th, an
armored cavalry regiment--the only one in the National Guard. The officers
accepted my offer.
Six hours of lectures were arranged for each unit of the second squadron:
Kingsport, Bristol, Rogersville, Erwin, Greeneville and Newport plus the
Howitzer Battery in Pigeon Forge--also for the 190th Engineers in
Morristown. Notes were prepared and copied for those talks with many more
for the officers who might be called on to negotiate with local Arab tribal,
village or city leaders. Far more personal and impressionistic, those notes
supplemented the factual manual on Iraq issued by the army. Actually, what
the men (and 2nd squadron had almost no females) most wanted was to have
their questions answered about the unknown people, religion and land where
they were headed.
There was little time to get to know the 278th, but they seemed like a
regular cross section of our area. On average, they were far older than I
expected. Before they left for intensive training at Camp Shelby,
Mississippi, and a month in the California desert, the executive officer,
Major Miles Smith invited me to help them orient themselves once they
arrived in Iraq. Again "I volunteered", uncertain how that could be fitted
into Army regulations and bureaucracy. The Army has "embedded" me as a
journalist for a month, hence this and future articles.
As the 278th left Tennessee the Army thought the 278th would be deployed in
the Sunni Triangle--very dangerous or to Mosul in the north--also quite
contested or to the Syrian border--hot, dry, very dull and bedeviled by
sandstorms.
It looked in early summer 2004 like the 278th may be heavily involved
fighting entrenched insurgents with all the dangers that entailed. We
thought the attacks against the Coalition forces would intensify after July
when the Provisional Iraqi Authority replaced Ambassador Bremer's regime.
After November, or about the time the 278th deployed by air to Kuwait to
meet up with their tanks, Bradleys, trucks, humvees and other equipment
shipped by sea, we expected the Iraqi insurgents would concentrate more on
fighting each other in the lead up to the January 30th elections. Those
predictions turned out to be about what happened.
In August Major Smith emailed me that the 2/278th would be stationed in Tuz
Kharumato, Iraq. I replied that either someone was pulling his leg or the
name was Turkish or Kurdish. For in Arabic, Tuz is a mildly dirty word. It
means a loud explosion of body gas--to put it politely. Men of the 2/278th
and their families laughed heartily that they were going to "fart", Iraq! In
Turkish, tuz means salt and Kharumato a mine. The 2/278th were headed for a
salt mine in the eastern part of north central Iraq!
Outside the southwestern edge of the Kurdish autonomous region, Tuz's
population once was nearly all Turkomen whose ancestors came to the area a
millennium ago from central Asia. Kurds who had lived in nearby villages and
increasingly in Tuz before Saddam's "ethnic cleansing" have now moved back
there. Saddam had tried to displace the Kurds of the oil rich Kirkuk area
with his own secular Sunni Arab supporters. The 2/278th would be going into
an area about equally divided between Shi'a Turkomen, Sunni Kurds and more
secular Sunni Arabs. Though in the Tuz area all have gone to school in
Arabic, ethnic identity as Turkomen, Kurds or Arab would prove far more
significant than Shi'a or Sunni religious loyalties.
By Thanksgiving the Tennessee National Guard had flown to Kuwait to meet up
with their equipment. Starting 12-12-05, the 278th moved their equipment
northward over five hundred miles from Kuwait, circling eastward around
Baghdad. Contrary to dire expectations, some 5,000 men with all their
equipment managed to reach their Iraqi posts safely. The 278th are spread
out on a north-south axis from just below Kirkuk through the eastern tip of
Sallah ad Din Province to most of Dayala Province northeast of Baghdad. They
relieved the 30th Infantry Brigade from North Carolina who, after two weeks
of hand-over departed for home on the day after Christmas.
The 2/278 occupy a former Iraqi air force base, now inactive with an earthen
perimeter berm across the runway. Their Forward Operating Base (FOB) has
been named Bernstein for an American soldier killed in Iraq, October 2003.
It is ten miles west of Tuz, far from everything on a pancake flat plateau.
The soil is gray clay--dust in heat and mud when wet. Only a few scraggly
eucalyptus trees grow around the bunker type buildings on the FOB. A few
clumps of trees at a poultry farm can be seen half way to Tuz. Aesthetically
worst of all for Northeast Tennesseans, the only hills are a low barren
ridge beyond Tuz.
Almost immediately upon arrival the 2/278th found itself intimately working
with the people of the Tuz area in preparation for the 30th January
elections. This would involve most of the men in personal contact with local
people, not just a few officers. None of the Tuz area had insurgents
effectively holding positions in villages or urban neighborhoods. It would
only be necessary for the 2/278th to mount irregular patrols. Our 2/278th
"Tennessee Peacemakers" would be doing exactly that--convincing the Iraqis
that they are in the Tuz area to promote peace!
Make no mistake, individual and small group insurgents operate in the Tuz
area. The 2/278th has to provide security while both policing and pacifying
the area. They would have to prepare for safe elections while also trying to
promote the development of an area badly neglected by the Saddam regime and
severely deprived of infrastructure repairs and civic, especially medical,
services under the UN sanctions. Kurds had been "ethnically cleansed",
forcibly moved out of the area and now returning to demand their homes and
lands. The Turkomen suffered because they were non-Arab, Shi'a and hostile
to Saddam. Still many individuals, groups and even whole villages resent
Coalition occupation as "foreign and hostile to their religion and proud
culture."
Men we thought quite ordinary citizens in Northeast Tennessee have taken on
the thankless job of enforcing security, law and order, while achieving
outstanding results with peaceful, fair and well participated elections. At
the same time they are recruiting and training a growing Iraqi army unit on
an adjacent base. The 2/278th are also training Iraqi police for the Tuz
district, an area of ethnic diversity and incipient rivalry. Simultaneously
this same group of our "ordinary Northeast Tennesseans" is making friends,
especially with the children, while they support the schools, provide badly
needed supplies to hospitals, encourage local government and promote
development of the Tuz area.
If I had not seen this myself over the past week as an "embedded journalist"
living with our Tennessee Peacemakers, I would not have believed it
possible! The 2/278th are doing an absolutely amazing job despite still
having only a smattering of Arabic, Kurdish or Turkoman languages. Yet they
go about their work as if it were the most usual job in the world. At some
empathetic human level, the officers and men of the 2/278th understand the
culture, the individual local leaders and all the machinations and intrigues
of Middle Eastern cultures better than people I have known who spent
lifetimes in this area! At some deep level beyond conscious thinking, the
leaders of Tuz area respond to our Tennessee Peacemakers, almost intuitively
character to character. The best in our men call up the best in the Iraqis!
What happened to the rather casual bunch of individuals I knew in Northeast
Tennessee? Instead, I find here a very tight knit group, bound together in
mutual trust and interdependence. Individuals lead convoys on dangerous
missions where they protect each other diligently--not only with their
loaded guns but by disarming those guns once back inside the base. Sharing
danger has bonded them closer than brothers. But that does not explain the
willingness of these men to do any job and work long hours nor their plain
native ingenuity to do well all sorts of things they never dreamed of a few
months ago!
The native goodness in these men of the 2/278th comes out especially in
their deep concern for the people of the Tuz area--already referred to as
"our people". Our Tennessee Peacemakers seem happiest and most "together"
when they visit schools and tell me how they want to come back to Iraq to
help make a better future for these people, especially the children. They
have fallen in love with the dark eyes and smiling faces of the children--so
much less privileged than their own children and grandchildren.
The remarkable men (and a few women) of the 2/278th aren't the usual 18 to
24 year olds of most wars or even most units of this one. The average age
must be over 40, including five father-son pairs and even a couple of
grandfather-grandson pairs. Combined they had greatly varied civilian
experiences, but that alone cannot account for the extraordinary flexibility
and wide variety of tasks these men of the 2/278th carry out 10 to 12/7 in
this very different environment from our beautiful Northeast Tennessee
hills, lakes and widely dispersed homes.
Something quite remarkable has transformed our "down home" boys into very
extraordinary men of the world--a very dangerous and challenging world. Our
Tennessee Peacemakers, so far with only one casualty (a bomb de-fuser) and
one attacking enemy dead (during he handover period of shared
responsibility), are performing near miracles that no one even dreamed
possible ten months ago, least of all from a gang of "civilians". I can
hardly recognize but warmly salute these outstanding men who do not even
seem aware of how truly marvelous they are!
Graham Leonard, PhD
Special Correspondent for the
Beirut DAILY STAR and
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
Dr. Leonard, an anti-Iraq War 2004 candidate for Congress in First District,
nevertheless has done all he could for the men of the 2/278th, our Tennessee
Peacemakers.
Graham Leonard visit to Iraq and Embedded with the
Tennessee Peacemakers, The 278th!
A DAY TO REMEMBER 3-3-05
As there are dates by which we mark our history, like 1066, 1492, 1776
etc. so are there days that burn themselves into our personal memories.
For me such a day was 3-3-05 (March third, 2005). That Thursday I awoke
early in the apartment of a Christian peace group in Baghdad, spent the
day in the Green Zone, Coalition headquarters, made my first helicopter
flight and went to sleep in the marble halls of a palace of Saddam Hussein
in his hometown, Tikrit. For a nearly 79 year old retiree, THAT was a day
to remember! Our three person peace delegation had spent eight days in
Kerbala, second holiest city of Shia Islam, with three extraordinary
long-term volunteer Christian peace workers. Due to the Babylon bombings
on 28 February, only one driver could be found in Kerbala willing to risk
the drive to Baghdad in the greatly heightened tensions. Those bombings
occurred in the heart of safe Shia territory south of Baghdad. The
long-term peace workers remained an extra day at Kerbala in order for our
short term delegates to make fixed plane reservations, along with four in
Baghdad, and for me to keep a rendezvous with the 278th, Tennessee
Peacemakers, National Guard. In Baghdad, I arose before six and by candle
light completed a report of our peace groups interview with al Sadrs
representatives in Kerbala. When electricity came on I hastily got all the
facts and quotes into a computer and printed out for the departing
delegation to take with them at 0800. After a quick breakfast I said
farewell to the peace delegation leaving for Baghdad International Airport
and Amman. A friend of the peace workers whose car was not known in their
neighborhood drove me to just outside the Green Zone. From there, at the
end of Jumhuriyah (Republic) Bridge, I had to carry my heavy knapsacks. I
had also purchased as gifts seven pounds of dates, three pounds of
pistachio cookies and five pounds of menn as-samma manna from heaven--an
Iraqi sweet made from gum of trees. Thus weighed down, I walked over a
mile through five check points. At the third check point I expected to
meet Company F of the 278th , from Bristol, seconded to Baghdad
headquarters from Tuz in the east of north central Iraq where I was
headed. But they had been replaced by regular airborne troop three days
before. A litmus paper type test showed positive for explosives on my
baggage, but a sniff dog cleared me. On the second floor of the former
Convention Center, I easily located the offices of the Combined Press
Information Center (CPIC). They expected me due to our many email
exchanges. They gave me the tag of the CPIC press credentials and made a
computer available for my use. The laminated tag has my photograph, my
index finger print and a photo of my signature--all done automatically and
computerized. Many emails needed to be answered, and I took the
opportunity to assure my relatives and friends that I had passed into
protection. A flack vest and helmet had been left for me at the CPIC by
Company F for the 278th to symbolize that protection.
The report of the peace group with Kerbala representatives of al Sadr
needed to be corrected and edited on the computer and emailed to the peace
delegation in the USA, Scotland and Canada. After several hours of typing,
I lost the corrected working copy and had to reconstruct it. It took a
good part of the day. The head of CPIC, a Marine pilot and major took me
to lunch at the cafeteria for that area of the Green Zone. Before entering
the areas for eating and an oriental bazaar, every soldier had to remove
live ammunition from his or her gun, look into the breach to see if any
ammunition stuck there and then, for double safety, dry pull the trigger
with the guns muzzle pointed into a barrel filled with sand! We ate in the
former ballroom of the Al Raschid Hotel. There was a hot food line, a
sandwich making counter and an extensive U.S. type salad bar. I had a
slice of very good meatloaf, a generous helping of beef strips and a
heaping bowl of salad with all the fixings. My host was appalled that I
could devour it all. I had not realized how poor and sparse our food had
been in Kerbala. I piously passed up the dessert table laden with cakes,
cookies, jello, puddings etc.--but no ice cream (happily for my resolve!).
Of course, I dozed briefly an hour or so later. At the last minute, my
Beirut DAILY STAR photo I.D. came through on email, but the CPIC had no
color printer. I went in search of Pat, the radio/TV coordinator who took
me in her car around in the Green Zone to the immense former palace of
Saddam, now the U.S. Embassy and armed forces headquarters, to her
desk in the State Departments Public Relations Center--the Green Room. We passed
stacks of gilded imitation Louis XIV furniture. The palaces carved
ceilings are several stories high. The floors and walls are covered with
marble of many colors. The Green Room itself, three stories high and the
area of a tennis court, is lined completely with wood paneling. It is the
most tasteful thing I saw in that overly ornate palace. Pat quickly
printed out my DAILY STAR press credentials in full color. There is a very
friendly feeling of camaraderie among the military and State Department
press liaisons.There are civilians, including Iraqis, Marines, Air Force,
Navy and Army officers and non-coms serving together in Coalition
headquarters in Baghdad.
Originally scheduled to fly to Tikrit, North Central Command, on Friday
morning, the CPIC put me on space available to stand by for a ten p.m.
Thursday helicopter flight. Everywhere in the Green Zone, security people
stand out. Global hired hundreds of mild looking Gurkas who guard
entrances to buildings, doors to suites of offices, check points along
roads within the Green Zone.Bully boy types abound from South Africa,
Germany and wherever peoplehave police or military experience. If reports
of their salaries be true, hundreds of millions of dollars are being
shelled out to very unsavory types. One couldnt help wondering whether
that money couldnt have developed Iraqs economy to levels that could have
made such extravagant security unnecessary. About four-thirty Baghdad
time, the CPIC allowed me to use a direct line (via satellite) to USA to
call Joe Powell during his morning radio program in Morristown. Joe was
quite surprised to have a telephone guest from Baghdads Green Zone. Later
I spoke also with WFHG, Bristol, who asked me to telephone back at 11:05
their time, 7:05 p.m. Baghdad, to speak won the Marc Bernier talk show.
Both calls had to soft pedal my voice for the surrounding dozen military
and half a dozen Iraqi journalist/translators within earshot. I plan to
speak with them again when I have more to report, especially about the
life of the East Tennesseeans of the 278th in Iraq. Just before nine as I
prepared to go out to the helicopter port--Washington--I discovered
missing my duffle bag containing my sleeping bag, towels and sleeping bag
sheet. Whether someone mistook it for theirs or I left it inadvertently
(old age?) at a check point, we had no time to discover. An Irish
journalist and I were rushed to the helicopter pad and bundled onto a
large whirlybird for my first helicopter ride. We took off, staying low
over the Green Zone to the Tigris River and then headed north. The pilot
kept changing course and altitude in evasive tactics. Baghdad from the air
at night seems now to have all its electricity back. The waning moon at
least lit the Tigris which we kept crossing and re-crossing. For the
flight it was mandatory to wear flack jacket and helmet, though mine was
sat lightly on my head, not strapped to the shape of the chin like the
military wear. Three sat facing two of us with piles of knapsacks filling
all the rest of our compartment. Up to eight could be seated in each of
two compartments. Each soldier, including females, had a large automatic
rifle, butt up, standing between their feet. Straps over each shoulder and
across the abdomen connect in a circular catch at your waist. Helicopters
not only lean left and right but front and back with all 360 degrees in
between, abruptly and quite disorienting. Booms came out and in on either
side, devices to foil or deflect heat, electronic or other honing devices
for guiding ground to air rocket attacks. After about forty minutes we
landed someplace with the Coalition name of War Horse to refuel. All of us
had to disembark, including two soldiers who did not rejoin us. On the
ground I realized that we were accompanied by an attack helicopter
bristling with guns. Somany have been shot down that helicopters no longer
fly alone in Iraq. I learned that helicopters have several landing pads at
each base and randomly rotate which they use. They certainly made
deceptive maneuvers throughout our flights, rarely going in a straight
line. We landed again at Brassfield-Mora (certainly not an Iraqi name) to
leave off the other two passengers still in our compartment. The last lap
to Tikrit took less than a quarter hour. At night our U.S. helicopters fly
without running lights and land with only a few flashlights with the
ground crews to guide them, so far as we could see. The pilots must use
night vision gear. So far, night flights have proven far safer than
daylight. Getting in and out of military vehicles with added armor plating
and helicopters, quite a step off the ground, proved a little difficult
for these old bones. Now I know why we send the young to fight wars! No
accommodation has been allowed for stiff joints and aching muscles. No
vehicle had come to our helicopter pad to meet us. A polish woman who runs
the PX had brought passengers to fly back to Baghdad, so we bummed a ride
to the Press Office. That office and our beds were located in one of
twenty-three huge stone palaces of Saddam that covered a large hilly area
along eh Tigris River. Artificial lakes had een built in the valleys with
palaces, most designed for guests, on the higher places. Several mosques,
a maintenance bureau and some smaller places for employees were located
out of sight of these main palaces. All the palace area was surrounded by
walls. Outwardly the buildings are oriental Mussolini monumental, to mix a
description, in yellowish limestone not much better quality than
sandstone. The interiors are pretentious imitations of oriental copies of
European palaces. Tons of marble of all colors and grains have been used
on floors and walls to the high ceilings. It is hard to make marble look
cheap or ugly but Saddams builders have managed to do so.
Fortunes were spent on elaborate crystal or glass chandeliers, all dull
from dust. I had to climb a curved marble staircase to a third floor that
was as far up as six usual floors. A marble courtyard about fifty feet
square in the center of the building was open from the ground floor to the
ceiling at least seventy-five feet above. All is faced with multi-colored
marble, including columns and heavy balustrades just low enough to make
one afraid of falling. How it ever could be heated in winter or cooled in
summer I cant imagine. The front entry on the second floor connected to
the ground floor courtyard by a wide grand staircase and landings nearly a
hundred yards in length all in ornate marble and lit by huge chandeliers.
It is said that Saddam visited this palace complex about five days, once
in a year. In the bathrooms, marble tubs could hold a dozen bathers. The
baths, the basins, the bidets and the toilets were trimmed in marble and
real gold, but the plumbing did not work. Our bedroom now holds about
twenty bunk beds. Our narrow balcony provided a beautiful view of the
green Tigris which bends around the palace area, now headquarters for the
North Central and Eastern Provinces coalition U.S. Army command. Tikrit is
capital of Sallah ad Din Province which stretches an appendage eastward to
include Tuz an hour and a half drive. The press officer greeted the Irish
journalist, working for a French news agency, and me about midnight and
offered us supper. We both used their computers to check our email and let
our families know we hadarrived safely. Then we went to bed and to sleep
in Saddams marble palace! 3-3-05 will remain for me a memorable marker in
my life, not only for the new experience of Iraq but as the connector
between my experiences in a Christian peace group is visit to Iraq and
being embedded with our Tennessee Peacemakers, the 278th!
Baghdad, Iraq
3 March 2005
This is being written from the Green Zone in Baghdad. I am now "embedded" as a journalist in the Army. I'll fly by helicopter tonight to Tikrit. The 278th [Tennessee National Guard] will send a convoy for me and I'll be with our Tennesee men and women by Friday afternoon for four weeks.
Very interesting experiences with Peace group in Kerbala. Will be sending articles in time. Have written about meeting with al Sadr group but need to edit.
Everything seems so much more normal and peaceful than one hears from press and TV.
Baghdad, Iraq
3 March 2005
Greetings from Iraq. Our flight from Amman [Jordan] to Baghdad [Iraq] in a small (20 passengers) prop plane was uneventful. Our drive in taxis into Baghdad was fine, but the third of our taxis heard and saw a mortar attack a few blocks from the road. Riding old taxis to Karbala (3 hours) was an obstacle course--but of holes in roads, traffic jams, and wild drivers.
We were stopped at the borders of the province because of religious observances in the Shi'a holy city of Kerbala, but our contacts, my Arabic, and our papers got us through after an hour's delay. Our very bare hotel is 200 yards from the Shrines of Husein and Abbas, beautiful mosques with real gold domes and blue tile facings.
We are able to walk in the streets. I am in an Internet cafe fifty yards from our hotel. There are festive crowds for the Shrines. I am right at home (dressed all in black!).
I visited an Army base here today--the National Guard from North Mississippi. We will go into the GREEN ZONE in Baghdad on 4 March and be flown to the 278th [Tennessee National Guard] for four weeks. I will send more news from there.
Graham Leonard
EDITOR'S NOTE: Dr. Graham Leonard is a citizen of East Tennessee, visiting Iraq today with the Christian Peacemaker Teams. His mission in Iraq is to help foster peaceful acceptance and mutual respect between Christians and Muslims. In 2004, he ran as the Democratic candidate for U.S. Congress for the First District of Tennessee. He has served as an educator in the Arab Middle East and speaks fluent Arabic. He will spend four weeks embedded with troops of the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the Tennessee National Guard.
Leonard heading to Iraq to teach nonviolence
02/07/2005
By HANK HAYES
Kingsport Times-News.
"I'm 79 years old, and I have lived a very full life, so if you hear that
I'm captured and they are going to cut my head off, don't worry about it."
Those were the words of Kingsport resident and former 1st District
congressional candidate Graham Leonard as he prepared to travel to Iraq
later this month as part of a six-member delegation sponsored by a
nongovernmental organization.
Leonard, who spent 35 years as an educator in the Middle East and speaks
fluent Arabic, said his trip is being bankrolled by Christian Peacemaker
Teams (CPT), an initiative of the Mennonites, Church of the Brethren and the
Quakers, with support and participation from Catholic and some Protestant
denominations.
CPT's mission in Iraq - which is being conducted outside Baghdad's heavily
fortified "Green Zone" - is to teach nonviolence, Leonard said.
He explained that Iraq's Shi'a Muslims have formed a human rights group
wanting to learn nonviolent practices the Martin Luther King way.
"It's not just Gandhi but what happened in civil rights in America, and
that's what they want to learn about," Leonard said. "They want to stand up
for what they think is right but do it in a moral way so they are not adding
to more killing. ... I expect to go to Kerbala and Najaf, the two holy
cities of Islam. I have no belief that I can do anything significant for the
area in three weeks, but I can be part of a witness that is ongoing there.
And then when I come back, I can speak all over East Tennessee at churches
and meetings and explain what I've seen."
Leonard, a Democrat, did a lot of talking to civic clubs and other groups
about Muslims and the Middle East during his unsuccessful shoestring
congressional campaign last fall against Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Bill
Jenkins.
Leonard got more than 56,000 votes, but only about 30 percent of the overall
vote. Still, that's better than most Democrats who have gone up against
Republican incumbents in the 1st Congressional District.
Leonard insisted his trip isn't politically motivated because he says he
won't run for Congress again in 2006.
"I feel my life's work has prepared me to do something like this, and I've
got to do it," he stressed. "My main value is I speak Arabic fluently. ...
There's a growing feeling that Islam and Christianity are enemies and have
to fight each other. I've spent my life trying to build bridges between
Islam and Christianity. We have a lot in common. There are a lot of
wonderful, fine Muslims in this world. The vast majority of them are
wonderful people. The small number of terrorists are destroying their
reputation."
While the individual winners in Iraq's recent election aren't yet known,
Leonard said most of them are probably Shi'as because they control 62
percent of the country's population.
"They know that the whole problem in Iraq is the whole question of power
sharing, and power sharing is something nobody outside of the West
understands," Leonard said of the Shi'as.
Sunni Muslims are closely identified with former Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein and the deadly insurgency going on now inside Iraq, Leonard said.
"I expect that the Sunnis are believed to have 250,000 tons of ammunition
and guns somewhere," he said. "They are certainly not planning to lay down
and get along with the Shi'as. Something is going to happen. I hope I'm
going to be there during the window before things start really getting bad."
Leonard said the CPT group's plan for traveling into Iraq involves flying
into Kuwait and then driving into Iraq because the routes leading from the
Baghdad airport and the city are notorious for daily roadside bombings.
Then, if it can be arranged later, Leonard said he would like to become an
embedded journalist with the 278th Regimental Combat Team of the Tennessee
Army National Guard.
But Leonard acknowledged that he fits the profile of someone insurgents like
to kidnap and execute.
"If they kidnap me, I think they'll be glad to get rid of me," he joked. "I
really recognize that I am the kind of person they want, and I will be as
careful as possible to not be on my own anywhere. But if I got captured, I
think that probably I might be able to talk my way out of it, maybe not. ...
There are worse ways to go. I'd rather have my head cut off than to die of
cancer.
"I certainly want to go on living, but I also don't think that I should stay
home. Our soldiers didn't have that choice. Other people are out there
working for peace."
Published: February 06, 2005
Kingsport Times-News.
Local Resident Joins Peace Mission to Iraq
Christian Peacemaker Teams
P.O. Box 6508, Chicago, IL 60680; Ph 773-277-0253; Fax 773-277-0291; email
peacemakers@cpt.org
Dr. Graham Leonard of Frederick, MD and Kingsport, TN will join a 6-member
team traveling to Iraq from February 19 - March 9, 2005. As part of a
delegation sponsored by the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), Dr. Leonard
will document current conditions in Iraq, meet with representatives of
non-governmental organizations, Iraqi human rights groups, the U.S. military
and others. He expects to visit with individual Iraqis who suffered under
both Saddam Hussein's regime and the U.S. invasion and occupation. The group
will also participate in teaching non-violent techniques to Iraqis,
initially in Kerbala, a Shi'a holy city. Leonard, a Harvard PhD in
education, has spent 35 years as an educator in the Middle East. He is
fluent in Arabic and French.
Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative of the Mennonites, Church of the
Brethren and the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), with support and
participation from Catholic and a number of Protestant denominations. Its
mission is to reduce violence and promote the resolution of conflict through
nonviolent means. CPT has had a presence in Iraq since October 2002, and in
early 2005 is one of the few remaining non governmental organizations
remaining in Baghdad outside the fortified U.S. enclave known as the "green
zone." It has a permanent team of four in Iraq.
CPT has maintained a full-time peace presence in Hebron, West Bank, since
June 1995, and in Colombia since February 2001. In addition, CPT has sent
trained violence-reduction teams to Haiti, Mexico, Chechnya, Bosnia,
Washington, DC, Richmond, VA and Native communities in the U.S. and Canada.
Dr. Leonard ran as an anti-war candidate in the 2004 elections in his native
Tennessee. He was Democratic Candidate in an area that has not elected a
Democrat since 1892.
Dr. Leonard is available for interviews regarding this peacemaker mission by
contacting him at (301) 788-8588.
Donations for this mission may be sent to the CPT organization at the above
address. Pls note on any donation it is to assist Dr. Leonard. Each member
of the team must raise/pay $3,500 in expenses to go and serve.
In addition, Dr. Leonard, who gave cultural orientation to the 278th Unit of
the National Guard may also get clearance as an embedded journalist with
them where he will write eye-witness accounts and articles, but not serve as
a reporter of daily news.
GRAHAM’S THANKSGIVING IN FEZ, MOROCCO, NOVEMBER 25, 2004
25-11-04
When the clock turned into Thanksgiving Day the ferry boat from
Spain to Morocco pulled out into the bay across from Gibraltar. As we glided
close by that British bastion on Spanish soil, a near full moon silhouetted
the ¨rock¨ named after the Arab general who invaded Spain in 711 AD to stay
until 1492. (The Mountain of Tariq--Jabal at Tariq--Gibraltar)
A single sea gull, bright white in the moonlight, glided
gracefully along with us in the breezes for the two hours of our passage
from Europe to Africa. I waited in Tangier’s polished new marble train
station for a six a.m. train to Fes - (6 hours). As we clicked along through
the Rif mountains, mostly treeless, I catnapped. We came into fertile flat
plains of sugar cane, artichokes, alfalfa, lemon trees and green fields of
bright new winter wheat sprouts in bright African sunlight.
I shared an 8 seat compartment with a veiled (to the eyes) woman
and her small daughter. At the ancient Andalusian capital Meknes, four women
and a young man filled it up with their baggage. As one of the women put her
other large shopping bag on the rack above me, a plastic bag of flat pita
bread fell in my lap. Amidst their apologies in French, I recited an Arabic
proverb: ¨Bread falling from heaven like blessings from Allah.¨ Gales of
laughter broke the stiffness of strangers thrown together in a crowded
train. They were an elderly but sprightly woman and two middle aged
daughters and a neighbor with a sullen college age son. I asked if they were
going for six months with all that baggage. They assured me laughingly it
was only for a four day wedding feast for one of the older lady’s
granddaughters.
After lengthy enquiries into our various healths and endless polite
questions about our families (not expectng personal information, only
general categories), the older lady asked how I came to speak Arabic? I
explained that I taught on the West Bank and in Gaza many years. They
expressed great concern for Palestinians and asked probing questions about
Jerusalem--third holiest place for Muslims. The son belligerently asked what
America was doing in Iraq but was told to cool it by both his mother and the
older woman. The latter took up his enquiry in politer terms, even with
evident concern for American dead and wounded. Obviously a woman used to
speaking her mind, she wondered why Saddam had not been turned over to the
World Court for crimes against humanity as had the Serbian Milosovich. I
explained that the US does not belong. She again hushed the young man when
he burst out: ¨The American guards of prisons in Iraqi and Afghanistan
should also be tried for crimes against humanity.¨
What surprised me were the deep feelings these ordinary Muslims in far-off
Morocco felt about American actions in Iraq. One of the middle aged
daughters, perhaps to assuage the agitated young man but also obviously out
of her own deep feelings asked me: ¨what changed between US support for
Saddam against Iran two decades ago and 2003 to warrant (here she used a
phrase ¨to justify to God on the Day of Judgement¨) all those American and
Iraqi deaths today? I had no answer.
The older lady changed the subject, asking what brought me to Morocco
in winter ¨not in the time of tourists.” I steered the conversation into
even safer territory to explain our Thanksgiving Day, a holiday foreigners
understand only as a harvest feast. For Moroccans, like most of the
Mediterranean World, including the Holy Land, harvest comes in late Spring,
after winter rains and before the return of a long dry summer heat.
As our train climbed rolling foothills covered with olive trees, villages
seemed more prosperous than the hovels of workers on the vast sugar and
citrus estates (formerly French owned, now ¨nationalized.”) The women began
to speak among themselves (in Arabic with a few phrases in French to show
their status). My fellow traveler with the little girl babbled on about her
life: like a damn had broken within her. She did not know the older women
but poured her heart out to them like she had not spoken in years. It seems
she was being allowed to visit her family for the first time since her
marriage to a cousin on her mother s side, an officer in the army stationed
in Tangier.
As I left the train at Fes the women teased me for my light luggage ¨for
nearly a month.” They continued on to a town high in the cedar-covered Atlas
Mountains. I was deeply thankful to be able to converse in their own
language with people (even partially veiled women) from a very different
world. On parting they assured me that Arabs/Muslims like Americans as
individuals though they do not understand or approve our government’s
actions.
In Fes I took a group taxi to a gate of the old city after a policeman
warned me NOT to ride a bus with luggage for fear I d be robbed by
pick-pockets. He also warned me, as do the guidebooks, about unofficial
guides and pick-pockets in the old city.
I found a hotel room just inside the new (1913) gate and crossed the
small square to a three story open-sided restaurant--Cafe Casbah no less.
There I had my Thanksgiving Dinner--a ¨ta' jeen¨. A pottery dish with a
conical lid filled with vegetables, chicken, strips of pickled lemons,
pickled hard boiled quail's eggs and pickled olives--all deliciously stewed
in saffron, spices and cardomom. I sopped up all the wonderful sauce with
crusty flat brown bread. With it, of course, I drank hot, sweet tea filled
with fresh curly mint leaves--the national drink of Morocco. For desert I
ate a small sweet baba with mandarins. I'd almost forgotten how much more
flavor tree-ripened fruits have.
The afternoon call to prayer from three nearby mosques reminded me how
much I have to be thankful for in 2004. Seven months of campaigning for US
Congress deepened understanding of my east Tennessee roots. At the same time
it gave me an opportunity to share with my own people understanding of the
Arabs and Islam from my life's work, education in the Middle East. Iraq and
peace in the Middle East was the real issue for the 2004 election. I may not
have been elected from 1st District, but I won a great re-validation of the
values I learned there and spent my life trying to share in one of the most
troubled areas on earth. I am deeply thankful!
In the afternoon I walked again (last here 42 years ago) through the
narrow alleys of one of the few remaining viable medieval city cultures. The
walled city of Fes, covering maybe ten times the area of old Jerusalem still
has craft guilds and life styles little changed in over a thousand years.
Each guild works and lives in its own quarter with its own mosque, bath,
schools, shops and cafes. Fes is best known for its tooled and
stamped-in-gold leather work, its pottery decorated in glazed cobalt blue,
and its Berber kelim woven carpets.
The public buildings (schools, mosques, baths, restaurants), mostly
from the tenth to fourteenth centuries, have ornately carved plaster cedar
walls and ceilings. Floors and wainscots feature blue and green tiles. The
roofs are of curved deep green tiles. Most buildings face inner courtyards
with palms and citrus trees, with always bubbling fountains. Over half the
people in the old city still wear hooded galabiyas, loose garments that slip
over the head. All but the teenagers wear bright leather slippers with their
backs folded under their heels.
What especially caught my attention in the Souks were knitted toboggan
type hats in black and red with 9/11 woven in black on a white circle in
front. They seemed to be worn not by the young but by middle aged men. My
curiosity aroused, I asked a few Moroccan merchants what they meant. The
answered agreed. In the beginning they had been produced and sold as an
expression of deep sympathy for the people of America--especially of a New
York City that seems to be semi-mythical for Moroccans. They said that far
more could be seen in late 2001-2002. Now they claim the 9/11 symbol is worn
by a few to mock an America that has killed thirty times as many Iraqis (and
half as many Americans) as died on that terrible day. Iraqis that had
nothing to do with 9/11 have inexcusably been invaded, an Arab/Muslim nation
incapable of threatening the USA. Millions all over the world think that
way!
For supper I had no room for anything more than a tall glass of
freshly squeezed orange juice with dark pita bread stuffed with kifta kabab
(lamb ground with onions, garlic, and parsley roasted over charcoal on
skewers). For dessert I ate fresh dates (much tastier than the dried) with
almonds.
Before going to bed I went to the local mosque's Turkish Bath (Hammam).
For about eight dollars I got heat through all my muscles and into my weary
bones, had rolls of skin oil scraped off by a woven glove that felt like
sandpaper and was given a deep pounding Berber massage. All that in an
atmosphere of neighborhood teasing and joking, with a blind story-teller
reciting in the cooling down room. Thursday night is bath night, to prepare
to go to noon prayers at the mosque on Friday.
My Thanksgiving Day comprised twenty-four hours with only a few brief
naps on the boat and train. By midnight I was thankful for a warm bed
because it gets cold at night. Fes is in the foothills (2,200 ft) of the
cedar-covered high Atlas. No turkey (Ethiopian rooster in Arabic) but I have
rarely had a more thankful Thanksgiving.
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